


A crown for the damned

by angeldescendant



Series: Fit for Bastard Kings [1]
Category: Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Askeladd being an ass, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dark Comedy, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Post Anime, SPOILERS ON ANIME ENDING, Snark, manga only readers lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeldescendant/pseuds/angeldescendant
Summary: If Askeladd can't have England, then Hel it is.





	A crown for the damned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knoxoursavior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knoxoursavior/gifts).

> A belated birthday gift. Been in love with Askeladd for 10 years, so might as well give him a proper send-off so here, a three-parter. Pardon my shit knowledge of Norse mythology.

As a reward for saving both Wales and Canute, Askeladd was sent to Helheim. Alright, fair enough. Countless battles with other washed-up warriors suited him better than never-ending banquets with the gods and mindless fucking. He did not believe in the hype. Valhalla was for sissies.

Björn was easy to spot among the carnage, no longer bothering to use weapons to dismember a poor sod with his bare hands. A tearful reunion, if that bastard was still sane. Askeladd will work it out; a good smack to the head will awaken his loyal strong hand to better days. He must build an army, and he needed a leader. It was convenient that the man he had in mind went ahead of him from Midgard. It would be no trouble conquering this realm.

—

“Seen him yet, Björn?” He’d ask after his three hundredth kill. They were not exactly clean deaths, with eternal damnation and all, but he was able to rope them into his cause after each fifth defeat at most.

“Fat chance he’d be here,” Björn called out as he swiped his targets with a halberd he got from a fallen warrior that rivalled Thorkell’s stature. “He’d be in Valhalla, those kinds of warriors.”

“What does that make us then, leftover scraps?” he sneered as he swung his sword to take out the blood. He barely had the time to wipe them clean. “Doesn’t it piss you off, how that Odin screens the fuckers who have a right to dine with him in Valhalla? I sent you off properly, didn’t I?”

“Maybe he figured I’d get berserk if I didn’t see you following suit. ’Tis no brainer, you can’t live on without me.”

“Gods, don’t go sentimental on me, you big lout,” Askeladd sniggered. “I have nothing else I’d want but to serve him after everything.”

“It’s not like you to be like this, even here,” his friend said while ripping another undead’s jaw off. “You offered him to lead our band once. Didn’t go so well, did it?”

_Do you have a wife and child?_

“Maybe he’ll change his mind. The situation wasn’t exactly friendly for-“

“Wasn’t it selfish of him? To stand by his ideals? Didn’t he think too far ahead of fucking up his son?”

“I didn’t kill the kid back when he was a runt. Not fully his fault,” Askeladd said absent-mindedly.

“What do you think would’ve happened to us if the troll of Jom did lead? Would’ve been farmers by now. Worse, slaves, most of us.”

“We wouldn’t have been out of the picture too soon.” He remembered what that big lout said, Thorkell, about Thors. _Until the day I die, it still pains me. How things could’ve been if I joined Thors then. _

Maybe it was because of the monotony. Life felt too predictable. Yes, Canute managed to offer a new direction for him (at the cost of his band and Björn) but it did not truly suffice. That princeling was still ascending to greatness. Not on the verge of it, like Thors who shunned it and achieved something because of it. What was it though?

Thorfinn never forgot his father. He should’ve asked that runt more about his father for easy tracking. Askeladd wondered if he forgot about him. That wouldn’t be so bad.

“You think Thorfinn would be here soon? I think I saw some of our men over there. Want to give them a good trashing first before that quest of yours?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, would kill time.”

—

Askeladd had a talent for reading people. Easy for him to see the weak, the reckless, the wolves lurking amongst the sheep… Only Thors eluded him. He shunned glory, pride, power, all the shiny things. To a smaller degree, Askeladd had as well by staying a Viking, refusing his birthright. Still, he couldn’t leave that cycle. At least he died much later than Thors.

_Do you have a wife and child?_

_They do you no good, _Askeladd mused as he stood on top of a tall column. He could see how low the ceiling was and the other fallen warriors’ gouged eyes enviously attempting to climb one as well. _Makes you die wrong, the lot of them. _Maybe he would’ve been a terrible father like his had been. He had no regrets killing him again and again there in Hel. Or his brothers. Or his men, his supposed idiot children.

He was a shit person, hence he’d be a shit father.

“Thorgrimm and Atli’s not here,” Bjorn reported after working on a fresh wave of fallen louts to bide by their wills. “No troll in sight too.” They had been waiting for Hel the goddess herself to do away with their takeover, but she was nowhere in sight. Neither were the fucking women and children and geezers. Looks like those fucking myth mappers were off the mark. He wasn’t of the faithful sort, but he held on a little hope that their quest for Thors would have a template to follow. He did not die gloriously. Thorfinn’s vengeful gaze of ten Midgard years was sure of that.

“I told Atli I’ll gut him if I catch him again,” Askeladd said. “Must be avoiding us.”

Bjorn did not buy it as usual. “You and your damn pride.”

“You’re meant to be used to it.”

“You really can’t admit that you let the light in when you feel like it; Even when it does you no good.”

“It did me good. Tied up all the loose ends when I fell under Canute’s blade.”

“You’re a noble man, Askeladd. That’s why I followed you, innit?”

“You fucking sweet-talking me?” he snorted. God, this is why he hated Danes, no, warriors in general. They rarely see the bigger picture. Even Canute fell victim to this when he asked why not seize the Danish crown in his stead? “I’m nothing more than a Viking,” he repeated those words, less bitterly this time.

“No, you’re my fucking boss. Shit, you never change.”

“Never needed to,” Askeladd scoffed.

“Tell me then, be fucking honest this time. Why Thors?”

“He’s stronger than Thorkell.”

“Doesn’t have your cunning.”

“Which makes it less likely for him to betray anyone.” Like he always had.

“Makes him more prone for people to take advantage. Pretty sure you’d dispose of him when you grew tired of his showboating. You cannot simply live a new life without killing.”

“I know,” Askeladd stares at the ceiling above. “But that was all I knew, Bjorn. For the Troll of Jom, it wasn’t.”

Canute and he had the same eyes. Maybe that’s why Askeladd followed Canute willingly. Killing had rendered him blind, unfit to handle lives.

He remembered Thorfinn’s vapid stare whenever that fool would not fixate on him. They were never filled with war. He wondered how they looked once Askeladd could look no more.

_—_

Maybe he wanted that, a saviour of sorts, a hero to follow. A chance to rest, no, maybe that wasn’t it. A chance to participate in Ragnarok? He thought that too when he went off to take Canute away from Thorkell’s clutches.

_Do you have a wife and child?_

Redemption felt too contrived. A sight of Avalon? Out of the question, given the shitty state they were in. Shit, why did that question drove him fucking crazy? Out of the realities that happened to him, with what his mother endured and ended up snapping to, his father’s hedonism, his men’s betrayal (which he sniffed many miles away), his sacrifice--

“I’m fucking dead and still that asshole drives me crazy,” he finally admits to Bjorn, who was too crazed to listen just below him, breaking bones left and right. Askeladd dangled in a Roman column, idly waiting for another mundane day to finish its course. “There are times I wish I answered differently.”

He did not want to say it out loud, but maybe if he risked it early on, he wouldn’t be there. Or maybe he wouldn’t bother watching a kid grow up under his wing and fuck up his life as he had as Olaf’s bastard son. He would not be out there swinging his goddamn sword like these goddamn bastards and be goddamn pissed for not taking a fucking break from this rote bullshit.

Fuck this. He did not want a fucking wife or a fucking child, but maybe he’d want to-

Someone fell down from the crevice posited just several feet away. The bastard was a small man with a measly excuse of a beard, tied blonde hair, bloodied temple, clad in rags. He clings onto the edge of the chasm, eyes filled with horror.

Askeladd groaned. Those weren’t the same eyes, but he could remember how many heads he was as a boy. Still a fucking runt.

“Been a while.”

“Askeladd,” the young man murmured.

Shit, he couldn’t believe he still fucking remembered him. “You never learn either you know? Here you are back again…”

He stood up because that idiot cried after a long, long while and the arrows refused to abate. There was still unfinished business he had to attend to. Thorfinn was still lost and his dad wasn’t there to drive the fucking point home. Again, Askeladd had to do the heavy lifting, goddamn.

“Go! And take the ones you killed with you! Fight a real battle! Become a real warrior Thorfinn!”

He smiled. Maybe that was it.

**Fin.**


End file.
